In the cabinetry industry, a typical construction feature, for example, in cabinets which are provided with doors, is a face frame on which the door is supported and hinged. The face frame members are affixed, for example, to an opening in the cabinet, and a pair of concealed hinges are affixed to an edge one of the face frame members and the door. Typically, the face frame member to which the hinges are affixed is made of a relatively strong material, such as hardwood, and has a thickness in the range, for example of about one-half inch to about five-eighths inch to about three fourths inch.
A customary mounting method of affixing the concealed hinge to the face frame member utilizes a hinge mounting plate which is positioned on an edge of the face frame member and fastened to the face frame member with one or more fasteners, such as fastening screws, inserted through one or more openings in the mounting plate and into, for example, one or more corresponding pre-drilled holes in the face frame member. Alternatively, the face frame may be omitted entirely, for example, in frameless cabinets, and the hinge plate may be affixed directly to an edge of a cabinet wall member in a substantially similar way.
The customary method of affixing concealed hinges works well, for example, on cabinet components made of relatively strong materials, such as hardwood. However, serious problems are encountered when attempts are made to employ the customary method of affixing concealed hinges, for example, to less expensive materials, which are not as strong as hardwood, such as medium density fiberboard (MDF). For example, attempts to employ the customary method of affixing concealed hinges in cabinetry by the manufactured home or mobile home industry, where MDF is typically used, have been unsuccessful.
Reasons for the lack of success in the manufactured home or mobile home industry are, for example, that when fasteners, such as fastening screws, are used in an edge of an MDF cabinet component, such as a face frame member, which ranges in thickness from about one-half inch to about five-eighths inch to about three-fourths inch (but which is most typically about one-half inch), the fastener tends to cause the cabinet component to split, and the fastener tends to pull out of the cabinet component under the weight of the door supported by the hinge. Accordingly, other types of hinges, such as surface mounted hinges, are typically used for such purposes, rather than more esthetically pleasing edge mounted concealed hinges.